How Does Your Garden Grow?

My daughter, Caroline, sent me this photo of a lily that popped up in her garden this year. She related that she never knows what else will grow, along with the expected blooms.

What a marvelous mirror of life's journey itself.

We plant, feed, water, sow, but always more shows up. How fortunate when the unexpected shows up as a beautiful lily, such as this.

Or is it just my daughter and I who have this experience? Most of the blooms in my garden grew when something else was planted, too. Her garden and mine have given birth to unexpected beauty to behold as wonder.

Such miracles are unprecedented joy.

On this life's journey,when has infathomable joy appeared in your garden?

Fireflies in the Night

Fireflies in the Night

Source" http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/firefly.html



Retreats are important for the health and well being of Spirit, an extended, focused period of meditation and reflection.

After 12 days of this retreat, ending the final day's meditation, I looked into the darkness of the night and there to behold were fireflies in the fields on this mountainside. They might have been there every night, but this was the first sighting by me. I asked myself, "Why are these fireflies dancing on this hillside tonight?" I watched them for a long time.
I remembered - long ago and far away - catching fireflies in the yard at night, putting them in a jar, only to let them go again, so they wouldn't die. Their existence never ceases to amaze me. I remembered being disappointed when the fireflies weren't out. I thought about what fireflies meant to me, what message they had to bring to me this night,


Fireflies occasion insight.I had some insights about darkness and light while watching the fireflies. Deepak Chopra has stated in many publications reecently: there can be no shadow without there being light. Imagine only darkness - we've all been there to some degree or another. Shadow is an integral part of being alive.


Watching fireflies is a discipline of observing and listening in the silence. Dancing with the fireflies in the dark field, occasions -for me - consciousness that hope and joy are always present.



Fireflies are spiritual guides. They glow from within and there is no heat- to burn out. They are not a reflection of the moon. Fireflies are high energy experiences, glowing from within while dancing in the night - A delightful moment of play.


Firefly light does not cast a noticeable shadow. Their bodies are ordinary, but their presence in the night field is extraordinary. Perhaps if many were concentrated in one location, there would be a shadow - like the collective shadow of the planet today. A few, here and there is manageable. But, the massive poverty, the overwhelming sense of possible nuclear disaster, ecological endaangerment - which includes the disappearance of fireflies, political impotence, etc. etc. etc.


Where are the beautiful soul-reflecting fireflies glowing in your life? Where do you see them overpopulated on this planet, so that only the shadow is seen? Where do we begin?

Laughter

"Life is too serious to be serious". I was reminded bySpinoza Bear that there is a lighter side of the story to tell, too. A friend told me I'm getting too introspective with these slices of life of mine.

However, it only served to remind me of an old movie in the family collection I inherited. The scene was a ranch, with the workers sitting around a table at dinnertime. The workers were all chimpanzees. The movie's intent was to teach table manners.  At one point, one chimpanzee reached in front of another to grab a plate of food. Another chimp saw the arm in his face and stabbed the reacher's hand with a fork.

We would laugh heartily every time we'd see it - and of course learned to ask to pass the food. But, sometimes, at the dinner table, my brothers would get rambunctious and mimic a stab  to the arm of the reacher (who forgot) and then we'd roar with laughter all over again.

I have been in a stress reduction workshop or two where one of the techniques to which we were introduced required us to begin laughing and build it up to a roar. Accomplishing this was easy. The result was relaxation, a refreshing humiliation, and, also, a sense of bonding with the others in the group. To participate did require a self-conscious decision. But, this may be true anyway, when encountering the opportunity to laugh.

When I remember to laugh, I laugh when I'm feeling blue for no apparent reason - hormones, maybe , I laugh when I begin to feel outrage at what's going on, I laugh when I'm having a creative block, and I laugh at a joke or comedy scene. I bring laughter into the circle and it becomes the dance.

Try it. What was the experience?

Walking Like a Feather.

When we found out we were going to Oombulgurri, I immediately found Mimi Shinn, to find out what it was like.  She and her husband, Ed,  had been the first to actually stay in the village. She told me that they had partitioned spaces with boxes  to provide some privacy for each family.  The one story I remember her telling me is about an a fternoon nap on a cot she had placed in the center of this box piled room. When she awoke, there were snakes in six different places in the process of crawling over the partitions. 

Needless to say, I was not really in a hurry to get to Oombulgurri! In fact, I had a phobia, even for grass snakes. Silly, I know, but very real.  Bob took me to the zoo - the snake house - so I could stand in front of them and build tolerance.  I'd stare at them for a long time , in a sweat and shivering, with the intent of adjusting to their existence.

 While in Oombulgurri, the only two times I ever really saw a snake were: a) a day when young boys, hoping I would scream - which I did , put it in front of my face; and (b) the time I saw one swimming along side of the 20+foot boat, it being as long if not longer.

However, I saw many snake tracks - in and out of our bedroom, walking on the path to the river in the early morning to meditate, and other sandy places.

One of the elders must have picked up on my terror. He offered to teach me how to walk through the fields - which, trust me, I did not do even after I learned. He taught me to walk like  a feather, placing each foot down firmly, with gentle resolve, as I proceeded. I was intrigued by the image of walking like a feather and pondered it for - well years now.

All the children, including my own, ran through the fields fearlessly, while I held my breath watching them. I have since decided that no snake in its right mind would dare hurt a child!

In the lore of this group of people, the rainbow snake was the beginning of life. The most revered person in the community would have been the daughter of the rainbow snake - something which passed from generation to generation. In Oombulgurri, the woman who held this position had an advanced stage of syphillis which caused her legs to look a bit like sabre blades.

I have never come to love snakes, even though one might have been the beginning of life, but I have come to hold a very healthy respect for them, even in my own yard. Black snakes feed on mice, but also on salamanders, which feed on spiders. Prefering the salamanders, I was grateful when a workshop behind my property was finished and the black snakes could return to the comfort of their home ground, now underneath the new building

In recent years, I have become aware that learning to walk like a feather, increased my confidence and mindfulness  - giving myself permission to be present and experience a sense of belonging where I was.  This image of walking like a feather replaces the image of myself as being present in a room as an unwelcome intrusion. I was given the gift of "No fear!"- an inner world experience.

I was given this most valuable gift by the remnant of a primal culture, which has all but been erased by the total disregard occasioned by Western expansion into their vast aboriginal environmental mansions and natural coexistence with its inhabitants.

Today, I am grateful for that experience which began as sheer terror and taught me to love the world around me and its daily events. It's about going into the most impossible situation and creating a demonstrtion of possibility.

There are some places in the world, still, that need to be walked into, and signs of possibility created.
There are some places in our own Souls that need some seriously joy-releasing dancing, as well.

As you reflect, where are these circles of suffering calling your name to not just walk, but dance like a feather?

Early Energy Experiments

One day a group of people came to Oombulgurri to demonstrate how to make methane gas. They put some cow dung in a container hooked up to an inner tube, explaining the tube would be filling up with the gas that could be used as an alternative fuel - maybe not renewable in an of itself without animals, but definitely the use of a substance that would not deplete or do harm the environment.

Mind you, this was in the 70's when this was being proposed. We were all very impressed and thanked them as they left on the next tide to travel down the river toward their next demonstration site.

Everyone forgot about the methane experiment until a few days later when there was a huge explosion and the whole village was saturated with this overwhelmingly rich odor of a highly populated dairy farm! Alas, the methane had continued to accumulate, filling the inner tube to its limit and the thing exploded.

There is an insight here about follow through. I am fairly certain the demonstration team did not leave behind, any directions for how to use the methane. Apparently, their demonstration was not particularly motivating, since nobody thought to ask how to use it as an alternative energy source.

There is another insight on creating the capacity to store energy. As we know today, in this new millenium 35 years later, while a viable energy alternative, storing it and accessing it for use is also a major project.

35-40 years ago, this demonstration team was a visionary dynamic for a very real need today, one that is beyond obvious and in the realm of critical. Oombulgurri was such a demonstration, realizing the need for sustainable local community. Perhaps we left behind a means for a village to follow through as well as developing the capacity for storing energy for ongoing use.

My opinion is that we never passed the demonstration stage and this was true for all demonstrations of that time. Now, everyone is scrambling to pick up what was started and run with it while we still have a planet - with people on it - TO sustain.

A whole inner world of Spirit life has also exploded and made its presence available for all of us who have access to mass media and spiritual centers scattered everywhere.

Have we learned to follow through on our own knowledge of alternative energy sourcing?  Have we developed the capacty to store energy safely and use it for sustaining life in local community?

Are we ready to take it to the world?